


How to Train Your Ex-Russian Assassin

by RABunzai



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clint is looking to adopt, Everyone helps with the training, Feels, Fluff and Crack, Natasha is a stray, Recruitment, SHIELD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-23 09:42:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4872049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RABunzai/pseuds/RABunzai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint brings in a stray and turns to an unusual resource for some help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

“Do I look like the damn ASPCA to you?” Fury’s voice is at least contained to a dull roar and Clint dutifully ignores the spittle that lands on his face.

“You bring a rabid Rottweiler into my house and you want me to what? Pat you on the back and give you a gold fucking star?”

“…I’d say she’s more like a small Doberman….” If Clint had a super power, it would be his ability to dig himself into deeper holes. Fury’s would probably be the ability to make people spontaneously combust with just a glare.

“Sir, she’s in the Interrogation Room.” Hill’s appearance might have just saved Clint’s life. The Director seems to recover himself, or else he doesn’t want to kill Clint with witnesses around and takes a step back.

“Agent Barton. You’re retired from active duty until further notice. You DO NOT leave this base. You DO NOT go near the interrogation rooms.” _You_ _do not pass go and collect $200_. “You will debrief with Coulson and then remain in your box until otherwise notified.” Fury is done with him for the moment and stalks towards the exit after Hill.

“Director wait!” Yep, Clint can dig deep, deep holes. “She’s….she just wants…..” Clint doesn’t know how to say it, why they should give the Black Widow a chance, because it’s instinct and feel; it’s the split second shot you take without looking. He senses Fury’s patience with him (if there was any left) is about to snap so he struggles for what he can. 

“She’s just lost sir.” The Black Widow is lost, adrift in a sea of brutality, lies and bad intentions with nothing but fragments of memories that are real and not. Clint saw it even when he shouldn’t and he hopes to any higher power that Fury, with his one eye, could see it too. She’s done evil, yeah, but she’s not it.   

To his credit, Fury just nods once and flares his nostrils before he leaves. Because as much as he can be a profanity laden hard ass, he’s always listened to his soldiers.

 

Hours later, when he gets back to his quarters from the debrief, Clint finds a book laying on his unmade bed with a post-it note stuck roughly on the front. He recognizes the familiar black and yellow layout on the cover. **Dog** **Training For Dummies**. He rips the post-it note off gently, turning it in his hand.

_Don’t fuck this up - Fury_

 

**....**

 

**When you first bring your ~~dog~~ Ex-Russian Assassin home, they may have trouble sleeping in a new environment. Sometimes just your presence will be enough to ease the anxiety.**

 

 

He’s ordered to stay away from her for the first few days, courtesy of Fury and the big wigs on the Council. He debriefs again with Coulson, has a rather invasive medical and another equally invasive psych eval to ensure he’s not compromised. Then he’s sent off to remote Alaska for six days to babysit a research team investigating a possible 084 which turns out to be a bear with mange. It’s probably a punishment but also a test and he thinks he passes.

The hour is late when he gets back, stopping by the mess hall because as much as he wants to sleep he needs to ingest something that’s not reindeer fat or fish or a frozen MRE. So he sits slowly poking at a congealing bowl of chili, fighting to keep his head from dropping in it.

Someone places a tray down on his table and takes the seat opposite him. Doctor McCoy is an older lady, grey hair dyed out with a brown rinse but the age is getting to her in the lines at her eyes and mouth. She’s a specialist psychologist; one Clint has only met once before on the day of his recruitment.

“You look tired.” She says, digging in to a jelly cup.

“You’re not my doctor.” He grumbles, because she’s not and he’s not up for another round of mind games.

“No, I’m consulting on the Black Widow.”

He straightens up before realizing his obvious error. To cover he starts pushing the starchy mess around in his bowl.

“How is she?” he asks. He’d spent a decent amount of his time in the snow wondering about her. Wondering if he was allowed to wonder about her.

“Privileged. I can’t tell you.” Her words are prim and proper and she finishes her jelly cup and starts cutting the crust off her sandwich.

Clint raises an eyebrow, sleep deprivation might be getting the better of him. “You came over here just to tell me it’s classified? You fishing for something doctor?”

“My first concern is for my patient.” She settles her sandwich on her tray and meets his gaze. “You look _very_ _tired_. Are you _not_ _sleeping_?”

Clint’s initial response is _no shit I’m tired, I’ve been tracking Bear-a-claus through Alaska_. But there’s something in the way she says it, her tone is off, the wrong words stressed. It all clicks in Clint’s head, albeit slowly.

“No…” Clint says, guessing the answer.

“Are the nightmares coming back?”

He nods, taking a breath. “How bad can they get before I should be worried?”

“Bad.” She says and there is an honest concern in her eyes. 

This is why he’ll trudge around the edge of the world for SHIELD, stepping in bear shit and risking frostbite in his fingers. Because it’s made of people who can be right assholes, himself included, but they still care. They still want to do good, even for someone like the Black Widow. 

“Thanks.” He tells her and pushes his plate away. She smiles and goes back to nibbling on her sandwich.

 

He makes his way down the hallway, squinting at the bright LED lighting assaulting his eyes. He doesn’t attempt to quiet his footsteps, doesn’t think he could even if he tried.

He just keeps walking until he finds himself outside the door to her room in the med bay, hand hovering over the keypad. He takes another deep breath and pushes the button, letting the tiny scanner read his biometrics. The keypad flashes red.

“Sorry, visiting hours are over.”

Clint turns and glares at the vent in the wall just below the decoy security camera where the real camera is hidden.

“Since when are we a hospital?” he asks the agent whose probably sitting in a room somewhere watching him scowl in high definition.

“Orders. No one but the docs go in or out.”

 

Clint flips off the camera, because he’s too tired for this, then grunts and leans back against the door. Cool metal bites through his shirt and he flinches for a moment before he can adjust to it. He should leave. He should just walk away back down the hall. But there’s that feeling in his gut that says he needs to stay. Based on what McCoy said she’s not doing to good and …nightmares.

“This is a stupid idea,” he mutters.

It’s a mantra that goes through his head as he slides down the door till he’s sitting on the concrete. He toes off his boots and kicks them aside. He’s too tired to reach out and set them neatly against the wall, electing to just leave them lying around haphazardly in the hallway. He tucks his left leg up and tries to leverage his right shoulder in the door jam. He’s slept in far worse places but the knowledge that a bed, his bed, is only fifty feet away makes his joints ache just a little bit more.

 _This is a stupid idea_. She’s got no idea he’s even here, and if she does, it’s not like she’d even care. Would she?

But…Nightmares. He’s no stranger to them. He remembers being a little boy and fearing sleep, fearing dreams of cruel words and hard fists. Sometimes he still wakes with the taste of copper and salt in his mouth.

Barney had been there when he was young. Barney, whose presence was chaotic at best but served as an anchor during those long nights.

 _This is a stupid idea,_ he tells himself, pushing closer into the metal. He repeats it when he thinks he can feel the slight pressure of another body resting against the other side of the door. He knows it’s not real, just a phantom sensation because the door is reinforced steel. Its the same way he knows that the exhale of breath he hears, a tired sigh, isn’t real either. Probably just a hallucination from his own lack of sleep.

He settles back and shuts his eyes. He falls asleep in the med bay hallway and doesn’t dream about anything.

………

Something soft hits him in the face. He groans and pushes the offending object off his head to look at his attacker. McCoy is watching him with a bemused expression, a second pillow tucked neatly under her arm. 

“What, I only get one?” Clint asks. He pulls himself up and stretches a cramp out of his foot. His boots still lay in the middle of the hallway, a workers compensation claim just waiting to happen.

“This one’s not for you.” McCoy says, and then makes a shooing motion with her free hand. Clint grumbles but takes his pillow and his boots and begins to walk down the hall. 

He stops when he hears the ping of the door unlocking and turns in time to get a glimpse of red hair before McCoy steps inside to block his view.

He hears the doctor’s voice carry down the hallway as she greets her patient, catching the last part just as the door slides shut.

“If you’re going to sleep against the door I thought I’d bring you another pillow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been sitting on my drive half finished for a while. It's really just an excuse to put a whole bunch of one shots together. I'm aiming for fluff and crack and a little bit of feels but I am no Hawkeye.


	2. Two

**If you’ve re-renamed your ~~dog~~ Ex-Russian Assassin try to be consistent with the new name and the tone of voice you use. **

 

Maria Hill thinks the Black Widow could pass for a lazy college student, the way she’s swimming in a pair of SHIELD issue sweats and a long sleeved shirt bunched up at the elbows. She has one foot propped on her chair, the other leg extended lazily underneath the table. In her fingers she spins a fountain pen. It’s one of those little corporate pens with SHIELD printed on the side. She twirls it seamlessly between her forefinger and middle finger. Spinning and spinning.

*Bzzzzzzz*

The intercom in the observation room buzzes and Barton’s voice comes over the static to request entry. Maria’s watch doesn’t leave that of the woman on the other side of the window but she hits the door button on her right.

“I’m here to pick up the prisoner Ma’am.” Barton yawns, even though it’s well into the afternoon. She’s not going to ask if he just got up, she probably already knows the answer. She’s going to pick fault with his words instead.

“She’s not our prisoner.”

“After a week of SHIELD paperwork she probably feels like a prisoner.” He’s exaggerating but still has a point. Bureaucracy is its own war, especially when it comes to the sheer mountain of forms, files and carbon copies that follow recruitment and defection. Then add the Black Widow’s special circumstances….and yes, someone’s going to strain an eyeball.

Maybe even the Black Widow given the way she’s interrogating her paper, that pen in her hand, spinning and spinning.

“She can read English, right?” Maria asks. If Maria hadn’t seen her fill out dozens of forms already she might have guessed the Black Widow was fudging her way through. The thought is absurd, but so is the situation and the question that remains unanswered on that sheet of paper is one she’s never seen any other agent fail to complete.

“Well, yeah, pretty sure.” Barton rubs at the back of his head, as if it’s going to shake the answer loose. “Why?”

Maria looks back at the woman, still twirling that damn pen. The speed at which it turns changes, from a slow steady rhythm, a sudden burst of velocity, and then winding down again. Maria wonders if she knows what she’s doing, that its probably mimicking the speed of her thoughts as she contemplates that one question she can’t seem to find the answer for.

“Because she’s been sitting there for the last thirty minutes trying to write her name.”

 

“Oh.” The archer’s tone is flat but with the edge of something running through it. He hooks the chair behind Maria with his foot, dragging it loudly across the tile and then turns it around to straddle it. He settles his arms over the back and rests his chin on his hands. He doesn’t take his eyes off the woman on the other side of the window. “No problem, I can wait.”

To Maria’s surprise, he sits quietly and waits.

 

.......

 

“Agent Romanoff.” Fury’s voice, a deep rumble breaks the silence in the room. From her position behind the director Maria has the perfect vantage point to observe the woman’s reaction. She holds his gaze but doesn’t nod, doesn’t react visibly at all to the invocation of her name. Almost like she didn’t recognize it. But she takes the badge when he slides it across the desk. “Welcome to SHIELD.”

…….

 

“Romanoff!”

The name is barked across the gym and its loud enough and harsh enough that Maria’s head shoots up from her tablet.

The woman in question steps forward, meeting Agent Yo’s order with a look that’s as harsh and hard as his voice. Yo calls for another agent to step onto the mat with her and then bids them to begin. Romanoff wipes the floor with her opponent. It’s another odd thought but Maria has to wonder if the woman recognizes her name or just the sound of an order.

……

 

She takes many names for her missions. Maria knows because she reads the reports and approves the expenses for fake bank accounts and passports.

Nadia, Nadine, Naomi, Natalie.

Nina, Noelle, Nicola.

Nancy, Nicole.

Never Natasha though. Not for a mission.

 

In the field she reacts as if those strategically assorted consonants and vowels have belonged to her all her life. But _Natasha_ , that’s a different story.

……

  

“We have a contact within the particular escort service Vladamir prefers. We’ve arranged for you to go in.” Maria drops the briefing packet on the desk between Coulson and Romanoff. “We’ll need you in Moscow by Friday.”

“Natasha.” Phil’s voice is gentle. Romanoff looks at him and for a moment Maria sees a question in her eyes. It’s gone when she speaks, replaced by determination and purpose.

“I’m not afraid to go back.”

……

 

Maria tells herself that she’s only there so she can assure Director Fury that no, Agent Romanoff is not dead, despite the field report. And if seeing the not dead agent in the breathing flesh makes Maria feel a bit better, then that’s a secret she’s going to keep to herself.

When she enters the medical bay, she learns that she’s not the only one with that idea. Barton’s slumped in a chair on the other side of the room, shoes kicked off and jacket bunched up under his head like a pillow.

He looks up when he hears her approach but doesn’t do much other than stretch a little and settle back down.

“How is she?” Maria asks, because it’s faster than reading the charts.

“Alive and kicking.” Faster but the information sucked. Maria nods because she’s not in the mood to deal with a grumpy Hawkeye. She’s sighted the agent, unconscious but not dead and predicted to recover, so really she’s got all she needs. She can get a full run down from the docs later.

She’s on her way out the door when something red on the floor catches her eye.

“Barton, are you bleeding on the tiles?”

He pulls up a pant leg to reveal a blood-covered calf. “Aw, stitches, no.”

She gives him a look that usually sends junior agents scurrying for cover but the archer just winces. He gives in though because even Hawkeye knows he can’t just sit there and bleed on the newly polished floor.

With an irritable whine he pulls himself up out of the chair and limps towards the bed. He stands there for a moment, watching the immobile figure on the off-white sheets.

“Nat…” He whispers, so low Hill struggles to hear it. The woman in the bed remains silent and still, save the slow rising of her chest and the beeping of the monitors. Barton shoves his hands in his pockets and turns away to limp out the door.

Maria has places to be but five minutes shouldn’t be too hard to make up. She sits in Barton’s vacated chair.

“It’s the care, isn’t it?” Maria asks out loud, maybe because it’s the only time she’d ever voice her opinion on the matter, when the woman she’s talking to is unconscious.

But she thinks she gets it now. It’s the combination of her name, those that are _Natasha_ , and the way its said with care and trust and god forbid even love. That Natasha has to question it because for so long they’ve been mutually exclusive, separate circles on a Venn diagram that don’t intersect.

……

 

Years later, after a week from hell, when the shit show of aliens and gods and superheroes is over, Maria will go through the tapes. She’ll work her way to the fight on the ladders, between Hawkeye and Black Widow. On the second viewing she pauses near the end, rewinds and plays it back 

“Tasha…” It’s a broken whisper. A prayer or a question or a thank you.

Maria thinks that’s the moment Agent Natasha Romanoff, aka the Black Widow, finally recognizes her name and those circles once kept always apart suddenly traverse. And then she punches Barton in the face.

 

 

 


	3. Three

 

**If you rescued your ~~dog~~ Ex-Russian Assassin, make an effort to learn about their past environment. It may ** **give you a better understanding of any current behavioral issues** **and help identify potential triggers.**

 

Holly hears the familiar sound of combat boots hitting polished concrete and doesn’t even look up from her spine repair of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations.

“Can I help you?” she asks, still focused on her work but making sure to cut in just before they go for the shrill bell on the counter. Whoever had this book last seems to have gotten stains all over it. She hopes that’s BBQ sauce but with SHIELD agents you never can tell.

“Uh, yeah, I’m looking for a book.”

_Of course you are, you’re in a library,_ she thinks and abandons her spine repair to assess her latest visitor. She expects to find one of the Academy recruits playing another childish prank but when she looks up he’s certainly not a recruit and he’s not one of their regulars either. She hasn’t seen him around SHIELD’s little DC library at all.

He’s fidgeting with the fingers in his left hand and shifting uneasily from foot to foot. Strange.

“About?” She prompts, because she’s got a talent for reading books and body language but she’s still unable to read minds. He has the grace to look sheepish.

“Oh, yeah, Russia. I’m after a book on Russia.”

“Russian language, Russian art, Russian culture?” He’s not very good at this.

“Culture, I suppose.” He runs a callused hand over a mess of spiky hair and glances left and right among the stacks, as if afraid he’ll be caught by someone.

“947.084” she tells him with a nod to the north wall.

He takes a hesitant step, as if he’s going to go and leave her to her work but then pivots, looks back at her and starts fidgeting again.

“…are they coordinates?” he asks. If he’s trying to flirt, he’s terrible at it and also not her type.

Holly gives him a pensive look that he seems to notice and he shakes his head.

“I’m not trying to be funny or anything, I’m just, well, I grew up in the circus you know, no real need for libraries…or school…or reading…” he gives a self-deprecating shrug.

She can tell he’s being honest and his anxiousness seems to stir her own childhood memories. She tries to think back to her first day in a library, confusing numbers and charts and the way nothing seemed to be in order. She offers up a soft smile in return.

“I’ll show you.” She says, quickly logging off her computer, because she may just be a junior librarian but she remembers protocol. She gestures for him to follow and leads him through the maze of stacks.

“It’s the Dewey Decimal System,” she answers for him when she catches him looking at the numbers written on the side of the shelves. She makes an internal note to grab one of those fact sheets she’d made up for the younger agents and have it ready for when he left.

“Huh, didn’t think I’d need a calculator to find some books.” He says it with a grin that looks more at home on him than the awkward fidgeting. He wins another smile.

 

“Here,” she tells him, finding the right section and gently inching out a few titles. “These should do, how far do you want to go back?”

He pauses, as if counting in his head before she sees him give up and shrug.

“To be honest I’m not sure, but these will work for now.” He takes the largest book she’d shortlisted and flips through a few pages. It has a good picture to text ratio.

“There’s a desk just by the corner. You can leave the book out when you’re done, I’ll just pop it back during my rounds.”

“Wow, full service huh?” He’s got the book tucked under one arm, his other hand rubbing the back of his head.

“We do try.” She leaves him to Kaminsky’s _Russia_ and returns to her binding repairs that now somehow seems less thrilling.

 

Occasionally she glances his way but he remains with his head stuck in the book, diligently turning the pages at regular intervals. He doesn’t make notes but that’s not unusual in a SHIELD library.

It’s an hour and a half before he settles the cover closed and pushes it to the back of the desk. He gives her a wave as he walks past, which she returns. It’s not until the door slides shut that she mentally kicks herself. She forgot to give him the Dewey Decimal fact sheet. Well, that’s ok; maybe he’ll be back.

….

He does come back two days later, just as she’s starting her morning shift. For the next month he comes and goes, sitting in his corner desk reading _The Red State, Mother Russia, Soviet Signs & Symbolism _and _The People’s Land._

Occasionally he asks for books on Russian language or literature by Tolstoy and Dostoyevski. Sometimes she’s even re-shelved recipe books and a book about Ballet. It strikes her as odd and part of her itches to ask why. Many of the older agents, the ones that have a harder time wrapping their head around SHIELD’s profuse online resources come here to research for upcoming missions. He openly admitted he wasn’t the type to prefer books so his sudden change in routine has piqued her interest.

She gathers the courage one day and asks him if he is indeed studying for a mission? Part of her expects him to offer the standard response – it’s classified- or hell, even threaten to report her curiosity to Director Fury. What she doesn’t expect is laughter.

“Oh, she’s a mission alright but not that kind,” he snorts, shoving his hands in his pockets and chuckling quietly to himself as he leaves.

….

It’s Tuesday morning and she’s got her head down, busy cataloging the latest arrivals when the bell on her desk rings with a gentle tap. Surprised, because she didn’t hear anyone approach, she looks up and is caught by a pair of clear green eyes.

“Can I help you” Holly asks.

The woman with short red hair chopped to her chin leans in a little closer. “I’m looking for a book.” Her voice is low, as if she’s letting Holly in on a secret. She exudes confidence and danger and all the things that should be out of place in a library but somehow aren’t, not on her.

“About?” She prompts, because really, still not a mind reader.

The woman isn’t thrown, simply pushes a lock of hair carefully behind her ear. She casts an eye around the library, an act that feels strangely like surveillance before settling her attention back on Holly.

“Archery. The circus. Or Iowa.”


	4. Four

**Praise your ~~dog~~ Ex-Russian Assassin when they exhibit positive behaviour.**

 

He smiles a lot. It unnerves her because every smile she gives is calculated, summoned with a goal in mind and used the same way she would a weapon. Clint Barton makes no effort to hide his smiles and the things that make him happy, as if he doesn’t realize that every curve of his lips is telegraphing a weakness, building a catalogue of soft spots she could use against him.

What’s more unnerving is the way he smiles at her.

 

….

 

Natasha stretches out in her seat and lowers her window down, enjoying the cool rush of wind on her skin. Beside her Barton is driving, slumped in his chair with one hand on the wheel and silently mouthing the words to a country song that sounds just like the previous many country songs he’s been playing through the radio for the last hour.

She readjusts in her seat, shifting the seat belt that keeps cutting into her collarbone. They’re driving to a SHIELD medical facility to let another neurobiologist explore her brain and mine for triggers. The thought of it feels like knives on her skin and if she were being anyone else right now she’d probably grin and bear it. But she’s currently just _Natasha_ and so she indulges the rare opportunity to express her preferences by unbuckling her seat belt, leaning across to turn off the offensive noise and then reclining her chair back, putting her boots up on the dash.

Barton doesn’t say a word, doesn’t take his eyes off the road at all but he smiles and keeps smiling for the rest of the trip.

……

 

The room is silent expect for the rapid flickering of fingers on a keyboard and the tick, tick, tick of the clock on the wall.

Since she’s joined SHIELD she’s been asked to take test after test as they try to quantify her existence through numbers on a page. Today’s test is a simple hacking exercise, a game of capture the flag, to determine her levels of proficiency in cyber ops. She’s twenty-three minutes in to her forty minute time limit when the conductor of the test, a young man with thin wire framed glasses and fitted blazer pulled over a t-shirt, is called out of the room leaving Barton to supervise.

The archer has been sitting languidly on a chair, balancing precariously on two legs, head back and eyes closed. When the door shuts his eyes snap open, he grins and pushes himself up.

“So,” he says as he walks toward her small workstation. He pulls out the seat beside her and flops into it without the grace she knows he could posses if he tried. “How long have you been finished?” he asks, eyeing her fingers that move swiftly over the keypad.

“Still going.” She lies easily, gesturing to the lines of code running across her monitor. He snorts and reaches over her, his arm brushing hers and taps a button on the keypad. The screen she’d exited as soon as he’d left his chair pops up.

Her posture tenses and her fingers still as she surveys him from the corner of her eye. His personnel file sits open on the screen, _Barton, Clinton Francis_ in size fourteen text on the top right corner.

She expects anger and when he bites his lip she prepares for the verbal dressing down she’s sure to get. He’s never done what she expects though and suddenly he breaks out into a smile and looks at her with something akin to amusement. He bumps her shoulder with his and leans across to type a command in.

“There’s pictures of me in my circus gear on here, purple sequins and spandex, you’d find that funny.” He says as he searches for it on the screen.

He’s smiling at her and she consciously swallows down the guilt stirring in her chest.

“I’m finished.” She bites out and ejects the USB, turning off the unit as she does so.

 

……

 

“Hey Hawkeye, I haven’t seen you at the Dog Cops nights, what gives?”

Natasha listens but doesn’t look up from her stretching. On the other side of the sparring mat Barton sits on the benches talking to two agents she’s not acquainted with.

“Been busy is all, I’ll just catch the re-runs.” He says, pulling a roll of tape out of his bag and beginning to wrap his knuckles.

“But dude, spoilers!”

Barton winces and shakes his head. The agents look bewildered and one tries a poorly concealed glance in her direction. She doesn’t make eye contact and continues stretching. They move like highly trained agents but the one on the left is hiding a limp and the other is carrying too much muscle, his movements hampered by the extra weight. If she needs she could take them both.

“Yeah well, if you change your mind next Thursday is the night Mr Whiskers finally brings in the Cat Doctor.”

“What, really?” Barton’s eyes go wide before he reins himself back in. _Terrible spy_ , she thinks.

“Maybe,” he shrugs. To Natasha’s ears his tone of voice is as good as a no but it seems to satisfy the agents who relay the invitation again and leave. Barton finishes wrapping his knuckles, lobs the tape back in his bag and walks over to her position.

“Why don’t you go?” she asks. It’s clear that he wants to. He perks up at any mention of the ridiculous show.

“Because I want to spar with you.” He says easily between jumping jacks.

He sounds genuine and there’s that lazy tug at the corner of his mouth he doesn’t attempt to hide. She doesn’t understand.

“We can spar other days,” she growls, suddenly agitated.

He notices her tone and stops, pins his shoulders back and rests his arms at his side. “Thursday night is the quietest night at the gym.” He says, deliberately meeting her eyes. “You hold back when people watch…I don’t want you to hold back.”

His words are a gut shot, making her muscles tense and her nails dig into her palms. He’s noticed, of course, because she’s still his mission.

The objective may have changed but she’s still his mark and maybe all those smiles are tactical weapons he brings to his adjusted assignment. Something about that burns at her a little more than it should.

She attacks without warning. He stumbles as he brings his forearm up to stop the blow and she kicks at his knee to drop him to the mat. She fights dirty, channeling her anger into a constant onslaught of attack, attack, attack.

When he tries to pin her arms she fakes an anguished cry. It startles him into letting her go and she takes the opportunity to wrap her thighs around him before rolling. They twist and he tries to throw her off but she pulls a switchblade from the waistband of her shorts.

She has him pinned, her blade against his throat and her legs locked in his. She looks him in the eye and expects to see fear for their position or anger about her tactics. But he just smiles up at her, hopelessly happy even through his split lip and the blood on his teeth.

Her grip on the knife falters. “Why?” she rasps out.

He should be confused by her question but instead he’s looking at her with soft eyes, as if he knows, as if he can read the parts of her she normally hides so well. Maybe he’s not such a terrible spy.

“Because it makes me happy.” He whispers against the sharp metal at his throat. “When you’re just you, even if it’s mean or borderline traitorous or really fucking painful.”

He’s still smiling, it doesn’t matter that she’s got him pinned, her blade against his throat; he’s smiling at her open and honest and victorious and she’s shocked to feel the tug that comes unbidden to the corner of her lips.

 

Clint Barton smiles a lot, but what’s most unnerving is the way he smiles at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because Clint would totally be the dog owner who rewards bad behaviour.


	5. Five

**Do** **socialize your ~~dog~~ Ex-Russian Assassin with people. Try to pick those **that will be a good influence and** reinforce your training.**

 

Clint grunts and tries to discreetly pull his shorts down a little. They’re a lot tighter than he remembers. Maybe he needs to stop with the squats… It must be all those extra lunges and not at all the second helping of mess hall pudding he’s been having recently. He gives up when he hears the sound of footsteps approaching from behind him, lest he de-pants himself in front of his visitor. He knows who it is, even before Natasha steps into his field of vision.

She’s dressed in a pair of black standard issue SHIELD running shorts and sweatshirt. It doesn’t escape his attention that she seems to have unpicked the embroidery on her right breast. The faint outline of her last name is still visible but only if you knew to look.

“This is a terrible idea.” She tells him, crossing her arms and surveying the throng of agents mingling in the hanger. This was the first time she’d ever been in the presence of other agents outside of the gym or a training setting. If she looked uncomfortable she didn’t show it.

“Come on, it’ll be fun.” He leans forward to stretch out his hamstrings but thinks better of it when his shorts ride up a little. He wonders if it’s too late to run back and grab his pants. “I thought Russians loved volleyball?”

Her response is a glare and to continue her surveillance of the hanger. She doesn’t leave though and Clint counts that as a win in the tentative truce they seemed to have found.

The round robin volleyball tournament was sort of an annual SHIELD tradition. He’s not sure how it started, rumor was it begun as a laugh at the ridiculous Top Gun scene and somehow it had evolved into a highlight of the SHIELD social calendar. (Not that SHIELD had a social calendar…well maybe they did, it wouldn’t surprise Clint).

Every year they’d clear the deck of the hanger, tape off a few courts and set up the nets. Given the space restrictions they capped teams at four a side but allowed any agent or recruit to participate, no matter what the department. Well, except for R&D. They were still banned from submitting a team after last year’s infamous ‘Flubber Incident’.

 

“How’s my favorite team? You feeling good, you want some water? Barton! How’s that shoulder of yours after the Bucharest mission?” Sitwell makes his way past the teams, stopping to survey Clint’s shoulder suspiciously; it was currently taped up but just as a precaution.

“It’s fine. So what are our odds?” Clint asks. The tournament attracted more than just those who wanted to let off some steam. It served to fuel the gambling habits of over half the base.

“You’re at $2.50 to make it to the semis, I’ve got a twenty on you so don’t let me down,” Sitwell grins at him, “Rumlow’s team is sitting at $1.35 for the win. Kurchov’s boys in Comms are at $1.70; apparently they hired on some seven foot college hot shot just for this.”

“I’ve seen them train, they’re nothing we can’t handle,” Melinda May drawls as she slides up behind Sitwell and sticks a hundred-dollar bill in his shirt pocket. “Back us in, we got this.” Sitwell nods and walks off to find a bookie, no doubt Martelli from accounting. He always gave the best odds.

Clint watches as May hands Natasha a drink bottle which the Russian accepts with a small nod but doesn’t otherwise engage the other agent.

When Carter arrives Clint makes the introductions and notices again that they don’t get much further than the usual pleasantries. He sighs; maybe getting Natasha to make friends might be harder than he thought. He didn’t think she _couldn’t_ do it, more like she just didn’t _want_ to.

….

 

Their first game is against a bunch of comms recruits who they dispatch of easily. Clint does most of the attacking with Natasha at the net with him. Well, Natasha doesn’t really do much of anything, she’s content to occasionally provide a dig or set but makes no move to attack. Clint thinks this is her way of protesting without actually maiming him.

Their second game is against a group of engineers. They win but Clint jars his knee trying to keep a ball in and has to retire himself to the back of court, taking Natasha with him and letting May and Carter take the net.

It’s easy enough to win their way to the semi final (a fact acknowledged by Sitwell waving his winnings around) and by luck of the draw they find themselves up against Rumlow’s team. Naturally he’s picked teammates as thick limbed and thick headed as himself. He recognizes Spencer and Steliou from STRIKE and Naumcevski from a few hard rounds in the gym. The guy’s got hands as large and hard as fry pans.

It’s their toughest contest so far. It doesn’t help that there’s some banter being tossed over the net that would give HR a coronary. May can trash talk like you wouldn’t believe and Carter flips Steliou off when he makes a comment on her choice of sports bra.

“Hey Black Widow, how about we see if your ball handling skills are as good as they say?”

 _Oh shit, Spencer is a dead man._ Clint reaches for Natasha before she can get a hand on the knife at her thigh, because even though this is a social outing, Clint has learned that woman is never not weaponized. Luckily for everyone involved she refrains from casual manslaughter.

Spencer blows her a kiss and she whirls around to glare at Clint, tugging her arm out of his grasp.

“I can handle myself Barton.”

He holds up both hands in surrender. “Hey, I just didn’t want us DQ’d by total knockout.” Socializing Agent Romanoff is not going as planned.

 

Rumlow’s deliberately not serving to Clint because he’s a sexist ass but Natasha is returning serve fairly well. It’s the most he’s seen her actually play, seemingly abandoning her original intention to do as little as possible in favor of humiliating Rumlow by making him accept defeat from a team of girls. Well, a team of girls and Clint.

They are attracting a bit of a crowd, which only fuels the trash talk coming from the other side of the net. The finals are a first to fifteen affair and they go mostly point for point until Steliou slams a ball between May and Carter, both women leaving it and expecting the other to dig it up. They drop behind (12-14).

“Keep up the talk team we can still get this back.” Clint says, trying to play cheerleader.

“Let’s just end this,” Natasha growls and walks over to whisper in Carter’s ear. Carter looks surprised but Natasha says something and Clint’s lip reading skills must be rusty because he swears she says ‘bend over’. Carter shrugs and then nods and they move back to their positions.

Clint serves a high volley that hangs in the air. He’s caught between watching it and distractedly noticing Carter’s chosen the moment right after to actually bend over and do up her shoelaces. Not in the take-a-knee way, but in the how-well-can-I-stretch-my-hamstring way.

_What the?_

Apparently he’s not the only one to notice because the ball lands untouched on the other side of the net, the players on that side too busy ogling Carter’s ass.

 

There’s a raucous laughter from the sideline as well as a few catcalls but Carter shrugs it off, the picture of innocence until she smirks and gives an appreciative nod to Natasha. Uh…when he wanted Natasha to make friends he’s not sure if this is how it was supposed to go.

After Rumlow and his team awkwardly apologize to each other, complete with subtle pants adjustments, its game back on.

“Switch,” Natasha says to Carter and she moves to take the blonde woman’s place at the net. They’re too far in for Clint to bother questioning it and at this point he figures he’s team captain in name only.

Clint digs out a return in the direction of May, who sets it for Natasha, who jumps and brings her arm down with force. Spencer, seeing her prepare to hit the ball to the corner of the court, dives to his side to cover it. He doesn’t account for Natasha’s unusually quick reflexes, slowing the arc of her arm to simply tap the ball over the other side of the net. It lands with a soft thud where Spencer had been standing.

So the Russian can play volleyball. Match point, coming up.

 

“Nice one Black Widow!” Sitwell calls out from the crowd, who cheer or groan in accordance with where their money is.

May walks across to Romanoff and offers up her right palm. Romanoff takes the high five before leaning in to let May whisper something to her and then both women draw back grinning wickedly.

 _Uh oh._ Clint is sure this won’t end well.

Rumlow serves again, naturally directed at Carter and away from Clint. She sets the ball to May who he thinks is about to take the shot. Only she sets the ball for Natasha again in a repeat of the last point.

Spencer sees this and not wanting to be fooled twice he plants himself in front of the net for the block. Rumlow yells at him and Naumcevski lunges but it’s all too late. Natasha doesn’t hold back and spikes the ball with extreme prejudice. It hits Spencer square in the face at impressive speed and then bounces off out of play.

May and Romanoff high five again and then repeat the gesture with Carter. No one high fives Clint.

“Woo, go team” he says dryly. There is an amazing amount of blood spurting from Spencer’s nose and he’s rushed off to a med bay to check for signs of concussion.

 

Clint hobbles his way over to where Natasha is still celebrating with May and Carter, all three women admiring the blood splatter pattern on the hanger floor.

“Why does it not shock me that you bond well over tactical sexiness and surprise violence?” Clint drawls, leaning down to inspect the floor. Well, okay, the blood spray is impressive. Natasha smirks.

“It’s what I’m good at.” That and volleyball. Clint was totally right, Russians love volleyball.

 

They win the final but are banned from entering next year’s tournament by hanger maintenance who complain about the bloodstains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a bit of lighthearted fun/crack to help me get through the week. Thanks to everyone who has left comments and kudos, you are lovely, lovely people. Also, you may have noticed I do not know anything about volleyball.


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